Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Thursday of the Twenty-Fourth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians [§ 271]. Brethren:

For Gk. usage, see 1 Thess. 4:18-5:10; for Sl. usage, see 1 Thess. 5:1-8.

4 ¹⁸Keep on comforting one another with these words.

5 ¹But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need for me to be writing to you; ²for ye yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief at night. ³For whenever they say, “Peace and security,” then sudden destruction standeth over them, even as the pangs of childbirth to her who is with child; and in no wise shall they escape. ⁴But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a thief. ⁵Ye are all sons of light and sons of day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness. ⁶So then, let us not be sleeping, as also the rest, but let us be fully awake and sober. ⁷For they who sleep, sleep by night; and they who get drunk, get drunk by night. ⁸But let us who are of the day be sober, having put on a breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. ⁹For God did not appoint us for wrath, but for gaining possession of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰Who died for us, that whether we be awake or asleep, we should live together with Him.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 80]. The Lord said this parable:

16 ¹“There was a certain rich man, who had a steward, and this one was accused to him as wasting his possessions. ²“And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about thee? Render the account of thy stewardship; for thou canst no longer be steward.’ ³“And the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do, for my lord is taking away the stewardship from me? To dig, I am not able; to beg, I am ashamed. ⁴“‘I know what I shall do, that, whenever I am removed from my position of stewardship, they might receive me into their houses.’ ⁵“And he called to himself each one of the debtors of his lord, and began saying to the first, ‘How much owest thou to my lord?’ ⁶“And he said, ‘A hundred baths of oil.’ And he said to him, ‘Take thy note, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ ⁷“Then he said to another, ‘And thou, how much owest thou?’ And he said, ‘A hundred cors of wheat.’ And he saith to him, ‘Take thy note and write eighty.’ ⁸“And the lord commended the unrighteous steward, because he acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in their own generation than the sons of the light. ⁹“And I say to you, make for yourselves friends out of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, whenever ye fail, they might receive you into the everlasting tabernacles.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Prophet Obadios (Obadiah), and the holy Martyr Barlaam of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, and our fathers among the saints, Barlaam and Ioasaph the Prince of India.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Colossians [§ 250]. Brethren:

1 ¹²Give thanks to the God and Father Who rendereth us sufficient for the portion of the lot of the saints in the light, ¹³Who delivered us from the power of the darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, ¹⁴in Whom we have the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, ¹⁵Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶For in Him were all things created, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or authorities. All things through Him and to Him have been created. ¹⁷And He is before all things, and in Him all things have come into existence. ¹⁸And He is the head of the body, the Church, Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might come to hold first place.

Gospel

No reading given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

December 2nd – Civil Calendar
November 19th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Prophet Obadiah.

Obadiah (Obdios) lived at the court of King Ahab, but when the king turned away from true worship and bowed down to idols, Obadiah did not follow the king’s example, but continued to serve the one, true God. When the wicked Queen Jezebel, because of her feud with Elias, hunted down all the prophets of God, Obadiah took a hundred of them and hid them in two caves, feeding them till the persecution was over (III Kings 18:4). A contemporary of the great Prophet Elias, Obadiah revered him greatly and hearkened to him in all things, being a follower and pupil of his. He lived nine hundred years before Christ, and entered peacefully into rest.

2. The Holy Martyr Barlaam.

He was born in Antioch, and was harshly tortured by the dishonorable judge for his faith in Christ the Lord. The judge decided to use ridicule, and to put such pressure on him that he would offer sacrifice to idols. He accordingly took him to the temple and applied fire to his palm, putting incense on the fire with the thought that the martyr would be forced by the pain to throw the fire and incense from his hand in front of the idols, and thus involuntarily offer them incense. But this heroic soldier of Christ held the fire on his palm, and would not cast it before the idols, until his fingers were burned and fell off, and his palm was burned through and fell to the ground with the fire. ‘He had a right hand stronger than fire,’ said St. Basil the Great, ‘for, though the flames consumed it, still the hand held the fire as ash.’ St. Chrysostom writes: ‘The angels looked from the heights; the archangels beheld, for the scene was majestic, surpassing in truth all human nature. Lo, who would not wish to see a man who made such an ascetic endeavor and did not feel that which it is common to man to feel; a man who was himself the altar of sacrifice, and the sacrifice, and the priest?’ When his hand had burned off, his body fell dead to the ground and his soul went to the eternal rest of his Lord and Savior. This glorious and heroic elder suffered in the year 304.

3. Our Holy Fathers Barlaam and Ioasaph the Heir.

They were Indian ascetics. Ioasaph was son and heir to King Abenner. By God’s providence he was visited by the elder Barlaam, who taught him the Christian Faith and baptized him. After that, the elder went off into the mountains to live in asceticism, and Ioasaph remained to wrestle with many temptations in the world and to overcome them by the grace of God. Ioasaph finally succeeded in bringing his father to Christ. When he had been baptized, King Abenner lived a further four years in deep repentance (for he had committed grave sins in his persecution of Christians) and then finished his earthly course and went to the better life. The young Ioasaph entrusted the kingdom to his friend Barachias, and himself went off into the desert to live in asceticism for the sake of Christ. His one desire on earth was to see his spiritual father, Barlaam, once more. God, in His mercy, fulfilled his desire, and one day, Ioasaph stood before Barlaam’s cave, and called: ‘Bless me, father!’ The elder Barlaam lived in asceticism in the desert for seventy years, living a hundred years in all. St. Ioasaph handed over his kingdom at the age of twenty-five and went into the desert, where he lived a further thirty-five years. They both had great love for the Lord Jesus, brought many to the true Faith and entered into the eternal joy of their Lord.

4. The Holy Martyr Heliodoros.

He was from the town of Magidos in Pamphylia, and was tortured for the Christian Faith in the time of the Emperor Aurelian (270-275). While undergoing harsh torture, he heard a voice from heaven: ‘Fear not; I am with thee!’ Thrown into a white-hot copper ox, he prayed fervently to God, and God saved him. The white-hot ox was suddenly cooled, and Heliodoros emerged alive. The judge cried to him that some sort of magic had done that, but to this the martyr replied: ‘My magic is Christ!’ He was then beheaded and went to the Lord.

FOR CONSIDERATION

A tale by the elder Barlaam to Ioasaph: A man was fleeing from a unicorn. Fleeing thus, he fell into a pit and grabbed hold of a tree. Thinking he was out of danger, he looked down and saw two bears, one black and one white, gnawing alternately and with great persistence at the roots of the tree in an attempt to gnaw them through and bring the tree crashing down. Looking even further down, he saw a huge and deadly snake, which, with jaws wide open, was waiting to devour him when the tree had been felled. He then saw four smaller, poisonous snakes around his feet. Looking upwards through the tree, he saw a small honeycomb in the branches, and forgetting all the danger that encompassed him, stretched out his hand to reach that small sweetness in the tree. The interpretation is this: the unicorn represents death, which from Adam till now pursues a man to kill him; the pit filled with all sorts of dangers is this world; the tree is the path of our life; the white and black bears are day and night, which alternate in order to shorten our days; the huge and terrible snake is hell; the four poisonous snakes are the four elements of which our bodies are composed; the small honeycomb in the tree is that small sweetness that life offers to man. Oh, when will men learn not to be enraptured by this empty sweetness, and forgetful of the terrible dangers that surround them and draw them down to eternal ruin?

Daily Scripture Readings taken from The Orthodox New Testament, translated and published by Holy Apostles Convent, Buena Vista, Colorado, copyright © 2000, used with permission, all rights reserved.

Daily Prologue Readings taken from The Prologue of Ochrid, by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, translated by Mother Maria, published by Lazarica Press, Birmingham, England, copyright © 1985, all rights reserved. Edited by Dormition Skete.